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Practice like a Stoic: 24, Premeditate on encountering difficult people
Other people’s judgments, values, and decisions are not under our control
[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics — How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 148–150 of the paperback edition.]
“When you wake, say to yourself: ‘Today I shall encounter meddling, ingratitude, violence, cunning, jealousy, self-seeking; all of them the results of men not knowing what is good and what is evil. But seeing that I have beheld the nature and nobility of good, and the nature and meanness of evil, and the nature of the sinner, who is my brother, participating not indeed in the same flesh and blood, but in the same mind and partnership with the divine, I…
